The fashion industry has a water blind spot

Water is widely recognised as fashion’s single largest environmental impact, yet it remains structurally overlooked in sourcing decisions, audit systems and sustainability reporting. At a time when 2.2 billion people globally lack access to safely managed drinking water, according to the United Nations, the fashion industry continues to consume vast volumes across cotton cultivation, dyeing and finishing processes.

A single pair of jeans can require up to 7,500 to 10,000 litres of water over its lifecycle, estimates frequently cited by the World Wide Fund for Nature and the United Nations Environment Programme. Much of this water use remains effectively invisible within corporate disclosures, particularly when embedded in raw material production and wet processing tiers that sit beyond brands’ direct operational control.

A new publication, The Drip: Voices on Water, Labour and Sustainability in the Fashion Industry, published by non-profit organisation Drip by Drip, seeks to confront this disconnect. Released in English and German, the report brings together eight contributors from across the global textile supply chain to examine how fashion’s water footprint shapes lived realities in production regions, particularly in South Asia.

From environmental metric to lived reality

Rather than approaching water solely as a resource-efficiency metric, The Drip reframes it as a structural issue embedded in pricing, governance and power dynamics. Through worker and community testimony, research-based insights and industry analysis, the publication documents how water risk is frequently externalised to sourcing regions while sustainability narratives remain concentrated at brand level.

Accounts featured in the report include garment workers describing being denied adequate drinking water during extreme heat, environmental scientists documenting industrial contamination of local waterways, and former brand auditors outlining how environmental safeguards often intensify temporarily around inspection periods.

The findings echo broader research from the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, which has highlighted the systemic nature of fashion’s environmental impacts and the need for upstream transformation, and from the World Resources Institute, which has warned that water stress is intensifying in many of the regions where textiles are produced.

Three systemic failures

The Drip identifies three structural failures within current industry practice:

1. The absence of community-owned water data Water monitoring and disclosure are largely brand-led or facility-led, with limited transparency or data ownership at community level. This gap weakens accountability where impacts are most acutely felt.

2. A disconnect between sustainability commitments and purchasing practices The report argues that aggressive pricing, short lead times and volatile order volumes undermine suppliers’ ability to invest in wastewater treatment, infrastructure and worker protections, despite brands’ public commitments to environmental stewardship.

3. A disproportionate burden on women and frontline communities In many textile regions, women shoulder the social and economic consequences of water scarcity and pollution, from unpaid care work to health impacts linked to contaminated water sources.

“Water is fashion’s most significant environmental impact, yet it remains largely invisible in industry decision-making,” said Amira Jehia, Executive Director of Drip by Drip. “The Drip shifts the perspective. It centres the people and places where fashion’s water footprint is felt most directly, and challenges the systems that continue to externalise those costs.”

Compliance versus outcomes

The publication also questions the effectiveness of current audit-driven models. Environmental compliance, it suggests, often prioritises documentation and short-term inspection readiness over long-term outcomes for ecosystems and communities. This critique aligns with growing scrutiny of social and environmental auditing frameworks across the industry, including concerns raised in policy discussions at the European level around due diligence and corporate accountability.

The European Union’s Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD), for example, is expected to increase pressure on brands to identify, prevent and mitigate adverse environmental and human rights impacts in their supply chains. However, implementation details and enforcement mechanisms will determine whether water governance moves beyond box-ticking compliance.

Reframing water as a structural issue

By positioning water not as a purely technical or efficiency challenge but as a structural one shaped by purchasing practices, governance gaps and power imbalances, The Drip calls for a shift from abstract targets to accountability grounded in evidence and lived experience.

For fashion brands navigating tightening regulation, escalating climate risk and increasing stakeholder scrutiny, the message is clear: water cannot remain an invisible line item. As climate change intensifies droughts and floods across major production hubs, water security is rapidly becoming a business continuity issue as much as an ethical one.

In bringing worker and community voices into a debate long dominated by corporate metrics, Drip by Drip’s publication underscores a critical industry reality: without structural alignment between sustainability commitments and commercial practice, fashion’s water footprint will continue to be displaced downstream, socially, geographically and politically.